Her Own Language
by Lou Buggins
Summary: BBRae Fluff in Garfield's POV


Her Own Language

I have known Raven for twenty-three years now. For three years we were just friends who later became best friends. From years four through six we began dating and somewhere during our sixth year I grew the courage to finally pop the question. After a very long week of waiting for her final decision and an even longer year of engagement, we finally tied the knot! After about three blissful years of marriage, Rae gave me two wonderful surprises, Maria and Mark Logan. My little Pups! Ten years later she'll have given me another blessing, our youngest and second daughter, Arella. Arella is now three years old, learning to talk, read, count, and meditate. The twins are thirteen, and oh boy have the teen years started off with a bang! On their thirtieth birthday they asked if they and their other meta-human friends/cousins could form their own team and become Junior Titans. Now of course we allow official Junior Titan Training to begin at thirteen, but these are my kids! I don't want them risking their life every day when they've barely lived at all! Well, anyway, this wasn't supposed to be about them. At least, not about our latest family drama. This is about my lovely wife, Rae.

Rae isn't one to stray too far from proper English grammar, but as I have gotten to better know her over the years, I have noticed that she too has put her own twist to the language. Mind you, she never uses slang, but some of the words or lack thereof, have many different meanings then they can appear. Here are some examples.

Rae isn't in to nicknames. Most everyone is to be referred to by their given or super-hero name, but on occasion she will give a select few some special names that only she can give. And by select few I mean me. The names she gives me are very dependent on her mood. Since we started dating she has mostly referred to me as Garfield or Gar. Beast Boy has become the name I hear right before I'm either thrown out of our room or out the window. Basically, in her language Beast Boy means run. Next down the line is either Garfield or Changeling. Changeling is what she calls me whenever we are out on a mission with other Titans or if we're around villains. She doesn't want to use my real name too much in front of people she doesn't fully trust. Garfield either means "I'm warning you." Or "more." It all depends on the circumstance. But my favorite is when her one and only nickname for me comes out - Gar. Gar came out of her mouth on our one-month anniversary. I will never forget it. We were walking along the beach late at night, her arm wrapped around mine. I stopped us and when she turned her head to look up at me, I placed a passionate kiss on her sweet lips. When we broke for air, our foreheads leaned on each other so that our breath mingled together. "I love you, Rae." I whispered. "Don't say it back until you mean it, but I love you."

She was still out of breath from our kiss, but she nodded her head slightly and breathed out, "I know." She kissed me back, but this kiss was shorter. When she pulled away she said, "I know you love me and I know that I really care about you too, Gar."

That's when time stopped. I couldn't believe it. It didn't matter to me that she had purposely avoided the L-word, but that Raven, the Raven, had done the same thing to my name as I did to her all those years ago. And man was it the best sound I have ever heard come from her lips. Well besides the day she did finally say "I love you" or the day she said "I do." Gar means everything and nothing at all. As long as I'm Gar to her, I'm doing pretty good.

Another part of her language is the unspoken part. Rae shows a lot more emotion than she used to, but even today her most used expression and tone is her monotone. Yet, if you pay close attention, there is always little changes to her voice and/or expression that gives away her emotions. A faint smile here and there means she approves or that she's happy. A scowl means the opposite. If she cocks an eye brow, that means she's confused and possibly irritated. If she starts to pull her hood up over her face, that means she's trying to hide her blush, and gash how I love to make her blush. If her hood is up and her body is hidden behind her cloak, that means she's feeling timid. If her hood is down with her body exposed, that means she's feeling confident or determined. If she bites her bottom lip, that means she's either 1) hiding a laugh (which I always frown upon), 2) in deep concentration, or 3) she really wants to kiss me. Yeah I know the third one seems far fetched and she would totally denied it if she were called out on it, but trust me it's true.

Another thing most other people don't relies is that even her signature eye roll can have more than one meaning behind it. Yeah, usually she's just irritated, but sometimes it can mean she's amused. For some reason, any positive emotion of hers is worse than the negative. At least to her mind. I keep trying to show her how her positive emotions are actually okay for her to express, at least a little bit, but of course I don't know what I'm talking about. So when she thinks something is funny or sweet (like when I say really romantic stuff or hilarious jokes), she'll gently bite her bottom lip and roll her eyes.

She may not relies that I've notice all this about her, but that's what I do! I love her and I love learning every little detail about her, no matter how annoying it might be to her. After all, she certainly knows more about me!


End file.
